For Ontario: I remember seeing on the MTO's website that the 401/400 interchange will be worked on sometime in the next 5 years. Does anybody know what the plans are and what type of work will be done? I've always found it to be a poor interchange considering the volume of traffic. Is there enough room for it to be improved with better ramps and more levels?

To my knowledge, they're currently rehabilitating the bridges on the 400/401 interchange, or they were the last time I drove through there (August 2016). They might be widening the westbound 401 from the 400 interchange to Weston Rd. to decrease weaving from traffic merging onto the 401 competing with traffic exiting to Weston. That's about it for improvements though.

To properly fix the interchange, you'd need to make it free flow merging and exiting to the express and collector lanes of the 401. The only direction that is close to that is the eastbound 401 to the 400.

There is a large parcel of land next to the Leon's in the southeast quadrant of the interchange - I'm not sure who owns that though. To my (admittedly not a civil engineer) mind, it would make for some unfortunate geometry to shift the highway using that land though. The MTO would have to fix the Basketweave too, just east of the interchange. It would be expensive and messy, which is probably why they're just rebuilding it as is.

Of course interchanges are waste of space but a necessary one. When you have a freeway meeting a freeway total separation must be maintained and at the same time cars can only turn/merge at a certain level without compromising safety.

Neither the most compact nor the most high-capacity interchange is the most efficient. What I'm trying to get at is that planners try to solve a myriad of traffic problems with a half-billion-dollar interchange, and most of the time it simply shifts the bottleneck to another part of the highway. And of course, the wider the physical barrier between neighbourhoods, the more likely people will rather drive than walk across the overpass. Even if it ultimately does reduce commute times, that puts more pressure on suburban sprawl until there's gridlock again.

One of the reasons I dislike stack interchanges is because all the levels make it nearly impossible to integrate transit with. The planned one at Steveston/Hwy 99 in Richmond will have elevators to get to the BRT stop, at the end of a long painful trek from the nearest point of civilization.

For arterial connections I prefer diamonds over parclos, because it creates by far the narrowest tear in the urban fabric, and in a trenched situation leaves zero wasted space.

A few years ago, Winnipeg built a fire station right in one of the parclo loops on one of the few urban interchanges that exists here... at first it seemed a bit awkward, but it works, and it has the benefit of putting to use what was a fairly large empty space in a convenient site.

There is also a trumpet interchange just east of there that also has buildings in the loop.

The rest of Winnipeg's handful of interchanges are not particularly wasteful when it comes to space... most of them are in outlying areas where space is fairly plentiful. Even the larger highway interchanges on the Perimeter Highway like the one 1ajs posted are not particularly unwieldy.

To my knowledge, they're currently rehabilitating the bridges on the 400/401 interchange, or they were the last time I drove through there (August 2016). They might be widening the westbound 401 from the 400 interchange to Weston Rd. to decrease weaving from traffic merging onto the 401 competing with traffic exiting to Weston. That's about it for improvements though.

To properly fix the interchange, you'd need to make it free flow merging and exiting to the express and collector lanes of the 401. The only direction that is close to that is the eastbound 401 to the 400.

There is a large parcel of land next to the Leon's in the southeast quadrant of the interchange - I'm not sure who owns that though. To my (admittedly not a civil engineer) mind, it would make for some unfortunate geometry to shift the highway using that land though. The MTO would have to fix the Basketweave too, just east of the interchange. It would be expensive and messy, which is probably why they're just rebuilding it as is.

MTO has contemplated several design improvements to the 400/401 interchange. This work has, to date, not been funded. The current work that is ongoing is simply rehabilitative in nature, and only serves to extend the life of the existing bridges. Work on the first phase of the project was completed in 2016. A second contract will begin this year to rehab the remaining structures.

MTO has looked at utilizing the land on the southeastern quadrant of the interchange, by building a new loop ramp for east->north movements from the collector lanes in order to replace the existing ramp. Geometrically, that idea hasn't proven to offer significant operational improvements to the interchange vs. other proposed improvements.

MTO is currently in the process of completing a broad study looking to implement HOT lanes potentially as far south on the 400 as the 401 interchange. Any decision to implement HOT lanes would almost certainly drive further changes to the 401/400 interchange design.

Not sure how wasteful Regina's Bypass project is but it's half way through completion.
At Two Billion dollars it's Saskatchewan's most expensive building project to date. Regina already has a Ring road plus Lewvan Dr that circles the centre core of the city, but the new highway bypass will allow TransCanada hwy traffic to circumvent the city at highway speed. The project includes 32 overpass bridges and several unique interchanges rare to Canada..

A few years ago, Winnipeg built a fire station right in one of the parclo loops on one of the few urban interchanges that exists here... at first it seemed a bit awkward, but it works, and it has the benefit of putting to use what was a fairly large empty space in a convenient site.

I'd argue it's the most wasteful infrastructure project in Saskatchewan history. Arguably the most wasteful in Canada in the 21st century until the Scarborough Subway goes forward.

My feelings are if past city planners of Regina had built out the proper highway interchanges on highway #1 east at University, Prince of Wales and Tower Road so that TransCanada highway traffic wouldn't have had traffic lights to contend with, the Regina Bypass may not have been needed, this could have saved $Billions. Also just in comparison, the NorthEast portion of Calgary's Stoney Trail just cost about $400million to build.

Saskatoon is planning a similar Perimeter road bypass because past Saskatoon city planners didn't plan Circle Dr for Yellowhead highway traffic properly, especially in the north part of the city.
In addition, once the two new bridges in Saskatoon are completed next year, there with be a total of 34 lanes of traffic crossing the South Saskatchewan River within Saskatoon. Edmonton with a population 4 times the size has about 50 lanes of traffic crossing its part of Saskatchewan River in that city. Unbelievably, with Saskatoon's planned Perimeter bypass plus a potential planned 33rd street river crossing, Saskatoon could have at minimum 42 lanes of bridge traffic crossing the river in Saskatoon in the next decade.

It is funny how we still line up behind the 1960's idea that roads are bad and the space needed for roads is a waste. It's not a di-polar issue, nor a such simple one.

Roads are no different than other land uses - they are as essential as housing, work space or any other. They don't waste land any more than any other use. When they take up large spaces to achieve transportation goals like speed, flow, safety, connectivity . . . well that's the nature of it. We are mistaken when we look at this land use in a bifracted manner. Paved space is necessary, the 'empty space' between the pavement is not waste space, it is geometrically necessary space - equally necessary.

Roads don't waste space any more than airports do.

How much 'interstitial' space there is depends on a number of variables; some of which are not particularly obvious.

Some of Vancouver's newer freeway-arterial intersections (the 17-Tannery Rd., or the under-construction 91-72 Ave. are examples) of late are taking up little land and the non-road parts are 'naturefied' for animal habitat. But there is a price paid for this. They are not fully free flowing, using lights on the arterials. Likewise, I just drove the loop ramp from eastbound 99 onto northbound 17. It takes up a minimum of land but the tight loop requires you to slow to 30-40 km/hr. We don't always have the land space to accommodate free flowing high speed interchanges, and we pay attention to habitat creation (wild grassland, wetland, rainforest complete with decaying tree fall). We are also starting to use the land within interchanges - the Hwy 1-200th St. in Langley, which has light industrial/retail and a hotel in between the ramps - and Hwy 99-King George Blvd. near White Rock, of which half is paved for a Park-n-Ride.

Big complicated freeway interchanges require more land than most other cases. When there are separated lane systems, like in Toronto, or Vancouver's Cape Horn, safely maintaining speed plus connecting all the different components requires more ramps, gentler slopes and curves and therefore more space.

In a different way prairie freeways include more area of interstitial space than one would see in most parts of BC. Sometimes wide grass mediums and large curving ramps making large interchanges, offer advantages in safety (separation, plus maintenance of steady speeds and long merge zones), habitat (grassland), and even a particular aesthetic. There is a cost in land area. But often this doesn't make much sense in terms of being wasteful. Sometimes these grass areas are integrated into local farming. And even if they just sit there, they filter road wash before it enters the water system, or just sit as grassland akin to thousands of acres of the same throughout the general landscape.

So . . . waste . . . its not simple.

Different aspects and versions of all this apply across the country/continent/world.

My feelings are if past city planners of Regina had built out the proper highway interchanges on highway #1 east at University, Prince of Wales and Tower Road so that TransCanada highway traffic wouldn't have had traffic lights to contend with, the Regina Bypass may not have been needed, this could have saved $Billions. Also just in comparison, the NorthEast portion of Calgary's Stoney Trail just cost about $400million to build.

Saskatoon is planning a similar Perimeter road bypass because past Saskatoon city planners didn't plan Circle Dr for Yellowhead highway traffic properly, especially in the north part of the city.
In addition, once the two new bridges in Saskatoon are completed next year, there with be a total of 34 lanes of traffic crossing the South Saskatchewan River within Saskatoon. Edmonton with a population 4 times the size has about 50 lanes of traffic crossing its part of Saskatchewan River in that city. Unbelievably, with Saskatoon's planned Perimeter bypass plus a potential planned 33rd street river crossing, Saskatoon could have at minimum 42 lanes of bridge traffic crossing the river in Saskatoon in the next decade.

Agreed, that Regina would not need this project if they had properly built out the current ring road and not allowed signalized intersections in the east part of the City. But just a point of clarification, NE Stoney in Calgary was more than $400 million. Closer to $650 million although it was built as a P3 project and some of the money was fronted and the rest is paid over the 30 year life of the contract.